Deck 13: An Explosion of Complexity: South America

Question 1

Machu Picchu was a:

A) lost Inca city, rediscovered in 1911
B) royal estate of the Inca elite
C) pre-Inca city on the shores of Lake Titicaca
D) burial site of a series of Moche priests

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Machu Picchu likely housed about how many people:

A) no more than about 750
B) between 5,000 and 10,000
C) more than 20,000
D) none; it was a burial site, and there is no sign of habitation

Answer 2

A

Question 3

Macchu Picchu was built:

A) more than 2,000 years ago
B) between A.D. 900 and A.D. 700
C) between A.D. 1300 and A.D. 1350
D) between A.D. 1450 and A.D. 1470

Answer 3

D

Question 4

At its peak of occupation, Machu Picchu consisted of about how many individual residences:

A) 50
B) 150
C) 5,000
D) none; it was a burial site, and there is no sign of habitation

Question 5

Most of the temples and shrines at Machu Picchu are aligned:

A) to the rising of the sun at the summer solstice
B) to magnetic north
C) with the avenues at the Inca capital at Cuzco
D) with the handle of the constellation we today call the Swan

Question 6

Moche, Tiwanaku, Huari, and Chímu are all:

A) ancient Inca cities
B) ancient Khmer cites
C) South American empires that predate the Inca
D) Moche burial sites

Question 7

The Inca were:

A) the only complex society to develop in South America
B) an empire built not on military conquest but on a common religious iconography
C) the first truly literate civilization in the New World
D) one in a series of complex societies in South America

Question 8

Moche represents:

A) one of the first kingdoms in South America
B) the first metallurgists in the New World
C) the religion practiced at Chavín de Huantár
D) all of the above

Question 9

The Pyramid of the Sun, constructed in the Trujillo Valley of more than 100 million adobe bricks, was built by the:

A) Moche
B) Wari
C) Chimu
D) Inca

Question 10

Charles Hastings and Michael Mosely have suggested that the symbols they found on some of the adobe bricks in the Pyramid of the Sun represent:

A) astronomical markings
B) the name of the ruler who commanded the pyramid be built
C) the name of the principal god of the Moche pantheon
D) a record of the brick contributions of local groups who helped build the pyramid

Question 11

Moche civilization reached its peak at about:

A) A.D. 400
B) A.D. 600
C) A.D. 1000
D) A.D. 1500

Question 12

The site of Sípan was:

A) an Inca city
B) the capital of the Moche empire in South America
C) a royal burial ground of the Moche elite
D) the culture that replaced the Inca after the Spanish conquistadors defeated the Inca in the sixteenth century

Question 13

The Moche royalty interred at Sípan appear to have been a class of:

A) warrior priests
B) scholars
C) heredity rulers
D) elected officials

Question 14

The Moche elite burials at Sípan date to about how many years ago:

A) 1,000
B) 1,660
C) 2,550
D) 3,890

Question 15

The Moche elite burials at Sípan included:

A) hundreds of pottery vessels
B) turquoise, gold, silver, and copper jewelry
C) other humans as well as llamas and dog sacrifices
D) all of the above

Question 16

Tiwanaku civilization reached its peak at about:

A) A.D. 400
B) A.D. 600
C) A.D. 1000
D) A.D. 1500

Question 17

The Tiwanaku civilization produced food through:

A) fishing the extremely rich waters of Lake Titicaca
B) a carefully engineered agricultural system
C) the importation of wheat from the rich croplands of Mesopotamia
D) all of the above

Question 18

Tiwanku is characterized by:

A) the construction of enormous stone structures
B) the construction of huge raised fields for agriculture
C) a ruling class where wealth and power were concentrated
D) all of the above

Question 19

The Wari civilization reached its peak at about:

A) A.D. 400
B) A.D. 600
C) A.D. 1000
D) A.D. 1500

Question 20

Establishing a pattern seen later in South America, the Wari maintained control of their empire by:

A) imposing their own language on groups they defeated in battle
B) controlling the food surplus
C) establishing regional administrative centers
D) terror

Question 21

The Chimu empire reached its peak at about:

A) A.D. 400
B) A.D. 600
C) A.D. 1000
D) A.D. 1500

Question 22

The capital city of the ancient Chimu civilization was:

A) Chan Chan
B) Cuzco
C) Dzibilchaltún
D) Tiwanaku

Question 23

The Chimu increased agricultural productivity by:

A) the construction of irrigation canals
B) building raised fields
C) using natural fertilizer, especially fish remains
D) all of the above

Question 24

The Inca entity in South America was:

A) an empire encompassing hundreds of thousands of people and nearly one million square kilometers of territory
B) a chiefdom which, though producing impressive monumental works, lacked many of the key features possessed by ancient state societies
C) a hybrid civilization that developed only as a result of contact with Spanish conquerors
D) long past its prime when the Spanish invaded

Question 25

The capital of the Inca empire was located in:

A) San Paolo
B) Buenos Aries
C) Cuzco
D) Tiahuanaco

Question 26

Tawantinsuyu was the name the Inca gave:

A) the primary god in their pantheon
B) their nation
C) the Spanish invaders, whose invasion had been predicted in Inca myth
D) their system of record keeping involving knotted strings

Question 27

In the language of the Inca, Tawantinsuyu means:

A) Sun God
B) The Four Parts Together
C) White Men With Four Legs (interpreted to mean "on horseback")
D) writing

Question 28

Archaeologist Brian Bauer proposed the following hypothesis to explain the rise of the Inca:

A) their invention of writing
B) the destruction of their rival civilizations by a volcanic eruption
C) their location on the coast and their ability to exploit the richness of that habitat
D) a debilitating drought from which they were insulated as a result of the location of their homeland in a high-altitude and wet valley

Question 29

At its peak, the Inca empire controlled a population of about how many people:

A) 10 million people
B) 5 million people
C) 1 million people
D) 250,000 people

Question 30

At their peak, the Inca controlled a territory whose area is estimated to have been almost:

A) 1 million km² (380,000 mi²)
B) 0.5 million km² (190,000 mi²)
C) 100,000 km² (38,000 mi²)
D) 10,000 km² (3,800 mi²)

Question 31

The Inca expanded the amount of arable land available in their mountainous home regions by:

A) their construction of chinampas
B) using organic trash as land fill in the swampy lowlands
C) constructing terraces that produced horizontal soil surfaces in the form of steps up the steep slopes of mountains and ridges
D) planting crops that thrived in the salt marshes that were otherwise not productive agriculturally

Question 32

The ultimate goal of Inca warfare was:

A) the utter destruction of competing complex societies
B) the enslavement of their neighbors
C) to produce work for their surplus population
D) to expand their empire by incorporating their competitors into the Inca polity

Question 33

At the peak of Inca expansion, about what percentage of the population included in the empire was ethically Inca:

A) 75%
B) 50%
C) 10%
D) 1%

Question 34

The Inca practiced "split inheritance." In this case, this meant that:

A) upon the death of the king, one of his sons inherited the kingship, but the dead king's wealth actually remained with him to maintain his mortuary
B) upon the death of the king, his wealth was split among all of his relatives
C) the material possessions of the dead king were destroyed as part of the burial ceremony
D) if the deceased king had multiple sons, they divided rulership of the nation

Question 35

The rulers of non-Inca states defeated by the Inca military and who then brought to Cuzco were effectively:

A) ambassadors for their home nations whom the Inca afforded a large measure of sovereignty to, even after they became part of the Inca polity
B) the equivalent of U.S. senators, powerful representatives of their "states" in the capitol of the nation they had become members of
C) hostages
D) sacrifice victims, killed quickly after their capture

Question 36

Altogether, the Inca system of roads stretched across about how many kilometers:

A) 100,000 (62,000 miles)
B) 48,000 (30,000 miles)
C) 26,000 (16,000 miles)
D) 13,000 (8,000 miles)

Question 37

All land conquered by the Inca:

A) remained in private hands but was heavily taxed
B) was redistributed to ethnic Incas
C) became the property of the Inca state
D) was burned to prevent their vanquished enemies from growing food

Question 38

The system by which the Inca determined the amount of work each citizen was obliged to provide the state was called:

A) corvée
B) chinampas
C) mit'a
D) Alternative Minimum Tax

Question 39

In the application of the mit'a, the Inca determined the level of work each citizen had to provide to the state on the basis of:

A) an individual's age
B) the number of children each adult had
C) the number of years an individual had served in the military
D) a sliding scale that was, in turn, based on the amount of work the state determined needed doing

Question 40

The Inca mit'a system applied to:

A) household heads between the ages of 25 and 50
B) all citizens of the Inca state
C) only the non-Inca residents of territories controlled by the Inca
D) men not in the military

Question 41

At its peak, the number of workers in the Inca mit'a labor force consisted of about how many people:

A) 80,000
B) 250,000
C) 1 million
D) 2 million

Question 42

The Inca lacked which of the following features seen in all other state societies:

A) a system of record keeping
B) a socially stratified society
C) cities
D) writing

Question 43

The Inca system of record keeping was:

A) the first writing system in the New World
B) a hieroglyphic system with a number of astonishing similarities to that of ancient Egypt
C) not a writing system at all but one based on knotted strings
D) derived from the older Olmec system of writing

Question 44

How did the Inca keep records?

A) through the use of an as yet undeciphered written language
B) they used a written numerical system virtually identical to that of the Maya
C) by impressing symbols onto wet clay which then dried, making the records permanent
D) by the use of knotted strings

Question 45

Researcher Gary Urton describes the khipu as:

A) hieroglyphs in three dimensions
B) merely decorative, not conveying information at all
C) a seven-step binary code
D) musical

Question 46

Of the 450 or so extant khipu examined by researcher Gary Urton, about two-thirds convey:

A) details about the lives of the royal Inca
B) information about military victories of the Inca army
C) instructions about how to worship the gods
D) accounting information about taxes, tribute, and quantities of goods in storehouses

Question 47

The Inca state expanded through:

A) military conquest
B) religious conversion
C) diffusion
D) democratic processes

Question 48

The Inca term mitmaqkuna refers to:

A) their system of labor taxation
B) the practice of terracing fields along steep slopes to increase the amount of arable land
C) conquered people whom the Inca dispersed and relocated to aid in their subjugation
D) the Inca practice of split inheritance

Question 49

The best way to describe the Inca term mitmaqkuna is:

A) waste not, want not
B) divide and conquer
C) do unto others as you would have others do unto you
D) the best offense is a good defense

Question 50

When we use the word "collapse" in describing what happened to ancient civilization, we mean:

A) complete destruction of a political entity
B political fragmentation of a large entity into smaller ones
C) almost always military defeat at the hands of invading Europeans
D) destruction of a society because of overpopulation

Question 51

In the view of archaeologist Joseph Tainter, all civilizations eventually collapse because:

A) the costs of supporting them eventually exceed the benefits
B) all civilizations eventually deplete their resources
C) new civilizations with new technologies develop and destroy older civilizations through competition for resources
D) civilizations become too conservative and cannot adapt to changing conditions

Question 52

In the view of archaeologist Joseph Tainter, the collapse of a civilization is:

A) not inevitable
B) "an inevitable tragedy"
C) "rational, economizing process"
D) in almost all cases beyond the capability for archaeologists to explain

Question 53

In the view of archaeologist Joseph Tainter, in the long run, the collapse of a civilization:

A) benefits most of the population
B) is permanent
C) leads to massive starvation as the system for producing and, especially, distributing food, collapses
D) is inexplicable

Question 54

Among the reasons archaeologist Joseph Tainter enumerates for the collapse of civilizations are:

A) resource depletion
B) environmental catastrophe
C) invasion
D) all of the above

Question 55

Concerning collapse, archaeologist Joseph Tainter:

A) prefers explanations related to internal economic factors
B) prefers explanations related to resource depletion
C) prefers explanations related to environmental catastrophes
D) concludes that individual explanations for collapse beg the question, "Why couldn't the civilization adequately respond to the challenge, whatever its nature?"

Question 56

The Llullaillaco Maiden was:

A) an Inca queen
B) a young Inca commoner sacrificed in a religious ceremony
C) an Inca goddess
D) the face displayed on Inca currency

Question 57

Analysis of the naturally mummified bodies of the children sacrificed by the Inca shows that in the year preceding their deaths:

A) they were slowly starved to death
B) they were physically abused
C) their hair and fingernails were uncut
D) their diets improved dramatically

Question 58

Analysis of the hair of the children sacrificed by the Inca shows that they:

A) suffered from malnutrition
B) were drugged with coca
C) lived at very high altitudes their entire short lives
D) were not local, but had likely been kidnapped from non-Inca people

Question 59

The Inca practice of capacocha, whose details were recorded by the Spanish, involved:

A) a labor tax applied to all Inca citizens
B) the system of military conscription applied to all Inca men ages 15-35
C) the Inca system of recorded information with a series of knotted strings
D) child sacrifice

Question 60

Archaeologist Lucy Salazar describes Machu Picchu as "a formal architectural symbol of the power of the ruler and his elite." Explain that characterization as it applies to Machu Picchu.

Question 61

Discuss the pre-Inca civilizations of South America.

Question 62

What do the impressive burials excavated at Sípan tell us about the social system of the ancient Moche?

Question 63

What does paleopathology and isotope analysis tell us about what befell the Wari society of South America?

Question 64

Who were the Inca? How did they maintain their vast civilization?

Question 65

How did the Inca increase the amount of arable land available for agriculture in their mountainous home region?

Question 66

Describe the expansionist policies of the Inca rulers. How did they "grow" their empire?

Question 67

How did the rulers of the Inca empire maintain order? How did they control the population of the nations they defeated militarily, the majority of whom were not ethnically Inca?

Question 68

Researcher Gary Urton interprets the Inca khipu as a sort of binary code. Explain, in a theoretical sense, how that might have worked.

Question 69

Describe the Inca labor tax system of the mit'a.

Question 70

What was the purpose of the Inca practice of creating what they called the mitmaqkuna?

Question 71

Describe the burial of the so-called Llullaillaco Maiden and the other children found high in the Andes. Who was she, and who were the other children? Why were they sacrificed?

Question 72

What has lidar and other imaging technologies shown us about the history of human settlement in the Amazon basin?

Question 73

Describe the place of human sacrifice found near the Chimu culture capital. Who were most of the victims of sacrifice? What could possibly have motivated the sacrifices?

Question 74

Most, perhaps all, civilizations ultimately "collapse." But what is meant by "collapse" in this context?

Question 75

Why do civilizations collapse? What general explanations have been provided to explain the collapse of civilizations?

Question 76

Archaeologist Joseph Tainter maintains that collapse is a "rational, economizing
process." What does this mean? Is he correct?

Question 77

What are the reasons for civilization collapse enumerated by archaeologist Joseph Tainter?

Question 78

Archaeologist Joseph Tainter concludes that all individual explanations proffered for the collapse of a civilization are inadequate. What does he think is the key question concerning collapse?

Question 79

What role might environmental catastrophe have had in the collapse of civilization? Discuss the evidence for the role of environmental catastrophe in the collapse of Uruk, the Maya, and Moche.

Question 80

Using the Messages from the Past section of this chapter as a jumping off point, do you think that environmental dislocations were a major factor in the decline of ancient civilizations? Are our modern societies immune to such dislocations, like global climate change?